Beloved people of
God, grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.
AMEN.

In over thirty
years as a pastor I have never seen so many people as unsettled as they now seem
to be. We have witnessed traumatic events: the explosion of the Space Shuttle
Challenger on January 28, 1986; the devastating terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001; and the financial crisis of 2008, the worst economic disaster in the
United
States since the Great Depression. But there is
something different about what is going on now. Many are experiencing a
pervasive fear and anxiety. It is as if the ground is moving under our feet. We
are experiencing the foreshock of what could become a major cultural seismic
event. We could get so caught up in what is wrong with our society and our world
that we could end up mired in cynicism and despair.

God does not want
followers of Jesus to live in cynicism and despair. Followers of Jesus are not
naïve. They take seriously the presence of sin in the world, both in its
individual and corporate forms. They are very aware of the destructive forces of
evil at work in our world. They know that they themselves are not immune from
sin and evil. As Paul writes, “all have
sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

Nonetheless, for
followers of Jesus the starting point in living our lives is not what is wrong
with the world, but what is right with the world at the deepest level. The most
famous verse in the Bible is John 3:16, included in our gospel reading for
today: “For God so loved the world that
he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but
may have eternal life.” While watching major sporting events on TV, the
viewer will often see someone in the stands hold up John 3:16 during the
broadcast. This verse has often been used— or perhaps we need to say misused— to
separate believers from non-believers, the saved from the damned, those inside
the household of faith from those outside, the followers of Jesus from the
enemies of Jesus. Such a misuse can obscure the deepest truth affirmed by Jesus
in this verse: GOD’S LOVE FOR THE WORLD.

In a number of
places in the Johannine writings “world” seems to refer to all that exists that
is hostile to God. Readers are exposed to a very negative view of the world. It
is as if the world is inherently evil. Some have wondered how God could love
such an evil world. Martin Luther once said, “If I were as our Lord God, and these vile
people were as disobedient as they now be, I would knock the world to pieces.”[1]Luther viewed it as a miracle that God did not do just that. He referred to
John 3:16 as the “gospel in miniature.” Despite the pervasive presence of sin
and evil in the world, God loves the world anyway. As David Lose writes, “one might capture the force and scope of
God’s unfathomable love by translating this verse, `For God so loved the
God-hating world . . . !” Lose adds that some may find God’s love “not only unfathomable but also somewhat
offensive.”[2]

German Pastor
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote his Ethics
in the early years of World War II. Hitler and the Nazis were at the zenith
of power, and they were implementing the holocaust with a vengeance. To be
blunt, it looked like the world was going to hell. Bonhoeffer himself, deeply
involved in the conspiracy against Hitler, feared that at any time he would hear
the knock at the door and be arrested. Nonetheless, he still affirmed in his Ethics that “the central message of the New Testament is
that in Christ God has loved the world and reconciled it with himself.” It
is not some ideal world that God loves. It is precisely the lost and condemned
world. “Acceptance of the lost and
condemned world,” asserted Bonhoeffer, “is a miracle of divine mercy.” He
added, “There is no part of the world, no
matter how lost, no matter how godless, that has not been accepted by God in
Jesus Christ and reconciled to God.”[3]

In John 3:16 the
Greek word cosmos, translated as
“world,” refers to everything created by God— what we would call the universe.
As I shared with the children, there is no person, no animal, and no plant in
any country anywhere in the world that is not loved by God. The whole cosmos has been shattered by sin, stands
under God’s judgment, and has been reconciled to God through God’s Son Jesus.
The truth of God’s love for the world cuts across all national, ethnic, racial,
cultural, and religious boundaries. From God’s point of view, there are no
second class citizens or illegal aliens in the world. God even loves the “bad
dudes.” That does not mean, of course, that God loves the evil and injustice
perpetrated by the bad dudes. Indeed, God’s heart grieves the suffering of the
world and all its inhabitants, so much of which we humans bring upon ourselves
and our fellow creatures. Followers of Jesus are called to share in God’s grief
and to resist evil and injustice and all destructive
forces.

Our 2017 Vision
for Ministry was adopted by the Congregational Council in February. The theme,
as it has been for a number of years, is “Because God Cares.” God’s care for us
is the foundation and motivation for our vision of living out our core care
values— God care, Earth care, community care, neighbor care, and self care.
Because God cares, we care. In challenging times, when the ground seems to be
moving under our feet, it is especially important to be grounded ever more
deeply in our core values. “For God so
loved the world” is another way of stating the foundation for our vision for
ministry. Because God loves the world, we care for God, Earth, community,
neighbor, and self— that is, for God and all that God has created— the entire cosmos. As followers of Jesus, we are
called to embody God’s love for the cosmos in our daily lives. Living out
our core care values is a way of doing just that.

In interpreting
John 3:16 the tendency has been to assume that “eternal life” refers to life
after death. But that is too limited an understanding of what is meant in the
gospel of John. “Eternal life” is the extraordinary fullness of a life centered
in our relationship to God and to the world loved by God. We hope to share in
such a full life after we die. But through faith in Jesus such a full life is
available to us here and now. Faith in Jesus is understood not so much as belief
in certain creeds or doctrines, but primarily as trust in him. To trust in Jesus
is to follow him wherever he may lead. We follow Jesus by loving the world God
loves— that is, the real world with all its shortcomings. We follow Jesus by
embodying our core care values. We follow Jesus by resisting every attempt to
diminish, discriminate against, or degrade any person or creature loved by
God.

In our Vision for
Ministry we identify two core ministry initiatives: worship and Christian
education. In worship we seek to “cultivate gospel-centered worship in a
variety of forms that glorifies God, communicates God’s unconditional love, and
inspires us to care for God, Earth, our communities, our neighbor, and our
self.” The purpose of Christian education is to “offer gospel-centered educational
opportunities that teach us of God’s gracious unconditional love for us and help
us grow in our faith and integrate the five core care values into our life and
ministry.”

We also adopt five
key ministry initiatives each year. For 2017 our key ministry initiatives
are:

Develop and
implement a 3-5 year plan for Sunday School with a good sense of leadership
needed and curriculum to be used (Godly Play, liturgy-based Spark Curriculum,
etc.).

Deepen the
“organic” culture of care in our congregation and
communities.

Observe the 500th
Anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 by: Participating in a series of events
with brothers and sisters in Christ of Holy Trinity Catholic Church; Engaging in
an Eco-Reformation Project as a congregation and encouraging the people of St.
Andrew to engage in personal and household Eco-Reformation
projects.

Address
housing/homelessness crises on the Westside.

Explore what it
entails for St. Andrew to be a sanctuary congregation.

In adopting these
key ministry initiatives the Council is saying, in effect, these are some
specific ways we envision the people of St. Andrew seeking to embody God’s love
for the world in 2017. As always these initiatives are open to be adjusted,
clarified, or reformulated as we seek to be ever more faithful in embodying and
living out God’s love.

The final verse of
our gospel reading, John 3:17, makes clear that God sent Jesus into the world
first and foremost not to condemn the world, but to save it. God desires the
fullness of life for the world and all its inhabitants. We can work with God in
fulfilling that desire, or we can work against God. John 3:18 states: “Those who believe in Jesus are not
condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already.” To trust in
Jesus and follow his ways leads to the fullness of life God intends. Those who
do not trust in Jesus and who do not follow his ways— that is, who do not embody
God’s love in their daily lives— are not condemned by God— after all God does
not stop loving them. But they do, in effect, condemn themselves, because they
reject the gift of the fullness of life God offers to all who share in God’s
love for the world. Jesus gave his whole life for the sake of that love. We are
called to do the same. That love is the firm ground on which followers of Jesus
take our stand.